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Integrity matters. Even if he hadn't gotten a big offer later on, he could still walk away with that. Yes, you can argue that he could have just kept his mouth

Integrity matters. Even if he hadn't gotten a big offer later on, he could still walk away with that. Yes, you can argue that he could have just kept his mouth shut and still honestly taken the Yahoo deal, but he said what he thought was right and gave Yahoo some good judgement about pg's team. I recently interviewed with a number of firms, and the ones that give off the best impression are the ones who ask to integrity at some point in the process. Hopefully this won't turn into the next "what's your greatest weakness" of interview questions. But firms doing the same thing in the same industry can often have a very different feel to them, and this is one of those things that might change your impression.

ethbr0 5y ago
Makes you wonder if behind the scenes, someone at Microsoft checked with someone at Yahoo and heard the story, and then Microsoft did the deal.
- mhb 5y ago
  If that were true, they wouldn't have paid more than Yahoo offered.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I read it as they sold later (amount of time unspecified), so presumably they continued to grow before the Microsoft offer.
vsareto 5y ago
How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?
- CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  Telling the truth isn't throwing anyone under the bus. If "they" are better than "us", that's the truth. Personally, I'd have bought the guy's company just because that's the right sort of engineer I want. Having said that, he wasn't under any obligation to tell Jerry anything.
  - vsareto 5y ago
    He compared engineers he's worked with to engineers he hasn't worked with (Viaweb) and said they were better. How did he know they were better? Is he just better at assessing engineering talent than the rest of us? You're assuming he knew they were better. Based on all of us (esp. here) not trusting technical interviews to determine engineer quality, I suspect he did not know they were better and was simply trying an off-the-cuff comparison to get Yahoo to acquire both of the companies. What he really gave was an opinion. It wasn't truth.
    - crate_barre 5y ago
      Dude he didn’t literally mean they were better. He gave a sincere compliment to Viaweb (an exaggerated one) as a compelling counterpoint to shift the other’s view. I dunno, the Yahoo guy seemed a little sociopathic for doing this. Reminds me of when Paul McCartney told Michael Jackson he wanted to buy The Beetles catalog, only to have MJ go ahead and buy it instead. Douchey to say the least.
      - vsareto 5y ago
        >I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest” >“They are hands down better than us." Uh, I'm pretty sure he meant what he said, with the second being a solid assertion. He didn't dance around it, he literally meant they were better.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- coldtea 5y ago
  Integrity is about telling the truth (as you see it), not about doing stuff for the benefit of "your own". In fact the latter can lead to exactly the opposite of integrity.
  - vsareto 5y ago
    I wonder how many times there were pep-talks with the LinkExchange engineering team about how everyone was great. Idk, maybe the twitter OP told their engineering team they were worse than Viaweb every day via automated, department-wide emails.
  - corpdronejuly 5y ago
    Integrity involves placing our duties to others in the proper order. Sometimes that means doing stuff to benefit "your own." sometimes that means blowing the whistle on something. It really depends on the context.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Not exactly. Having integrity means being whole, united, and indivisible. That certainly can involve telling the truth, but it's much broader than that. Someone who leads a double life, even if they don't make any commitments about their private behavior and even if they don't lie about it, lacks integrity. Integrity means the opposite of being two-faced. In this case, OP's behavior lacked integrity, even though it was likely honest. Although he was at the Yang meeting as a representative of LinkExchange, he advocated in favor of Viaweb. The forcefulness with which he argued ("your guys are wrong") definitely crossed the line into advocacy, not just an off-hand honest opinion. This set up a conflict within himself (his feelings toward Viaweb vs. his own interests and duties to his partners) as well as a conflict within the LinkExchange team. https://insighttimer.com/consciousleadershipgroup/guided-meditations/creating-wholeness-through-integrity https://insighttimer.com/consciousleadershipgroup/guided-med... https://www.commonsensemedia.org/character-strengths-and-life-skills/what-is-integrity https://www.commonsensemedia.org/character-strengths-and-lif... "the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity
m3kw9 5y ago
Sometimes this type of integrity is just being too honest as he said. Is like telling your customer there is a better restaurant down the road with cheaper prices, go there.
khazhoux 5y ago
> Integrity matters Citation needed :-)

ethbr0 5y ago

Makes you wonder if behind the scenes, someone at Microsoft checked with someone at Yahoo and heard the story, and then Microsoft did the deal.

mhb 5y ago
If that were true, they wouldn't have paid more than Yahoo offered.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I read it as they sold later (amount of time unspecified), so presumably they continued to grow before the Microsoft offer.

vsareto 5y ago

How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?

CapitalistCartr 5y ago
Telling the truth isn't throwing anyone under the bus. If "they" are better than "us", that's the truth. Personally, I'd have bought the guy's company just because that's the right sort of engineer I want. Having said that, he wasn't under any obligation to tell Jerry anything.
- vsareto 5y ago
  He compared engineers he's worked with to engineers he hasn't worked with (Viaweb) and said they were better. How did he know they were better? Is he just better at assessing engineering talent than the rest of us? You're assuming he knew they were better. Based on all of us (esp. here) not trusting technical interviews to determine engineer quality, I suspect he did not know they were better and was simply trying an off-the-cuff comparison to get Yahoo to acquire both of the companies. What he really gave was an opinion. It wasn't truth.
  - crate_barre 5y ago
    Dude he didn’t literally mean they were better. He gave a sincere compliment to Viaweb (an exaggerated one) as a compelling counterpoint to shift the other’s view. I dunno, the Yahoo guy seemed a little sociopathic for doing this. Reminds me of when Paul McCartney told Michael Jackson he wanted to buy The Beetles catalog, only to have MJ go ahead and buy it instead. Douchey to say the least.
    - vsareto 5y ago
      >I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest” >“They are hands down better than us." Uh, I'm pretty sure he meant what he said, with the second being a solid assertion. He didn't dance around it, he literally meant they were better.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
coldtea 5y ago
Integrity is about telling the truth (as you see it), not about doing stuff for the benefit of "your own". In fact the latter can lead to exactly the opposite of integrity.
- vsareto 5y ago
  I wonder how many times there were pep-talks with the LinkExchange engineering team about how everyone was great. Idk, maybe the twitter OP told their engineering team they were worse than Viaweb every day via automated, department-wide emails.
- corpdronejuly 5y ago
  Integrity involves placing our duties to others in the proper order. Sometimes that means doing stuff to benefit "your own." sometimes that means blowing the whistle on something. It really depends on the context.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Not exactly. Having integrity means being whole, united, and indivisible. That certainly can involve telling the truth, but it's much broader than that. Someone who leads a double life, even if they don't make any commitments about their private behavior and even if they don't lie about it, lacks integrity. Integrity means the opposite of being two-faced. In this case, OP's behavior lacked integrity, even though it was likely honest. Although he was at the Yang meeting as a representative of LinkExchange, he advocated in favor of Viaweb. The forcefulness with which he argued ("your guys are wrong") definitely crossed the line into advocacy, not just an off-hand honest opinion. This set up a conflict within himself (his feelings toward Viaweb vs. his own interests and duties to his partners) as well as a conflict within the LinkExchange team. https://insighttimer.com/consciousleadershipgroup/guided-meditations/creating-wholeness-through-integrity https://insighttimer.com/consciousleadershipgroup/guided-med... https://www.commonsensemedia.org/character-strengths-and-life-skills/what-is-integrity https://www.commonsensemedia.org/character-strengths-and-lif... "the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity

m3kw9 5y ago

Sometimes this type of integrity is just being too honest as he said. Is like telling your customer there is a better restaurant down the road with cheaper prices, go there.

khazhoux 5y ago

> Integrity matters Citation needed :-)